Reasons to be cheerful

Reasons to be cheerful #1: Lidl's were selling large bunches of long-stemmed yellow roses for £1.79 each or £3 for two. Bargain!

Reasons to be cheerful #2: The aerogarden is ready for harvesting - I picked a large bunch of Basil and made a delicious vegetarian dinner: onions, garlic, leeks, carrots, sweet pepper, broccoli all cooked in a herby tomato sauce and topped with sliced potato and a cheesey white sauce.

Anyone for cake?

Well here's the remains of the cakes I made for tonight's meeting - the chocolate cream cake was the most popular, but there weren't as many people at the meeting as I'd anticipated. Now what am I going to do with so much cake in the house? Hardly conducive to my shedding some of the extra weight! Anyone care to come and join me for an impromptu coffee morning?

Anyway, some good news: I've been invited to have an informal chat about a possible job opportunity.

Impulse Buying

A few weeks ago I bought some rye flour on impulse, intending to make some bread (all because a friend once told me he liked the rye bread a local baker sells).

I went to a seminar many years ago on 'Stress' and out of all the words spoken there, the concept that stuck with me was "It's not the things we do that cause stress, it's the things we leave undone".

So the rye flour sits in the cupboard for a while ...

Finally the day comes when that niggling thought has gathered such strength that I get around to looking through my cookbooks for a suitable recipe and pulling the rye flour out of the larder (hey! I bought TWO bags of this stuff! What was I THINKING?!?). A kid from next door pops round with her friend - it's a pleasant distraction for a few minutes. They go. I'm left with my big intentions.

So I make the bread - in the end it's kind of experimental, not adhering to any particular recipe. I add soya flour and a bit of rice flour and a bit of cornflour, some honey, some olive oil. I guess at the amount of liquid then add some more, and take it out of the oven when it looks done. The result is very tasty but still doughy in the middle - whether because the dough was too wet, or because I didn't bake it long enough I don't know.

That was Sunday. This morning there is still half a loaf sitting there uneaten. I've thrown a slice out for the birds and they've turned up their beaks at it. Whatever the recipe was for the rye bread my friend used to buy from the bakers, I don't think I've quite stumbled upon it. But you know I've got lots of rye flour left to play with ... lots. Lucky me.

That same friend isn't a professing Christian but today sent me a link to Bocelli singing The Lord's Prayer with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He used the word 'sensational'. I watched it and for some unknown reason, it didn't do a lot for me. I tried to work up a sense of reverence, a deep emotional response that I'm guessing had I been there in person, I would have felt. Nothing. At best I could appreciate my friend's gesture, appreciate the connection between us that prompted him to send me the link believing it would move me. Contrast this with a link a Christian friend recently sent me: Glee: 'Imagine'. That held so much appeal I now watch the series on TV.

Anyway, back with the subject of this post: impulse buying.

I've been asked to make some cakes for a meeting tomorrow night. I went shopping for ingredients yesterday. I'm aiming to do a chocolate cream cake and a fruit cake. Used to be I bought sultanas for the fruit cake, until I discovered another friend likes bran loaf made with luxury dried fruit mix. As I stood in front of the shelf of dried fruit, I felt a gentle inner prompting to buy the sultanas rather than the luxury fruit mix. I heard it but ignored it, thinking I knew better, that any dried fruit not used for the cake will come in handy next time I make a bran loaf.

Today as I looked at the remains of the rye loaf, this idea popped into my head: why not make a bread and butter pudding with it?

As I stood there trying to pick out the sultanas from the luxury fruit mix, I thought back to that inner prompting yesterday. If only I had listened.

Jersey Boys

Gorgeous weather - blue sky and sunshine - for our trip to London. My friend picked me up around 10 am and we headed into town. There's a cafe called Ossie's in the city centre we like to patronise - stopped there for lunch then drove on to Leicester Square and checked out what films were showing. After enjoying 'Up in the Air' (George Clooney), we bought tickets for Jersey Boys at the half-price Tkts booth (where the sales assistants are extremely helpful). We walked around a while, browsing a couple of Waterstone's stores to give me a chance to spend my book token. I was looking for 'Factoring Humanity' by Robert Sawyer. I read 'Flash Forward' recently and enjoyed it, and I'm reliably informed that 'Factoring Humanity' is the author's own favourite of the novels he's written. Unfortunately it's not currently available in the UK, as far as I can gather.

After a cheap and delicious vegetable lasagne at Yates' in Leicester Square, we walked down to the Prince Edward theatre and took our seats for an evening of entertainment based on the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Super day.

Mardi Gras

Today I learned something new: Mardi Gras is French for Shrove Tuesday. Here is the table laid ready for tonight's Pancake Party. I invited some friends round for a bring and share supper and enjoyed the evening so much I'm planning another one soon. I supplied baked potatoes and my friends brought tuna mayo, grated cheese, moussaka, salad, etc. Dessert was of course pancakes (served with a choice of ice cream, cherries, strawberries, maple syrup, lemon juice and sugar). All very simple. Entertaining made easy.

The significance of silence in the Buddha Dharma

The day began with a really good workout at the gym. I joined the 'Body Blitz' class. I'll confess I made a mistake - I thought I was going to a 50+ keep fit class and anticipated it would be fairly gentle. No such luck! Going to a class like that on a regular basis would soon sort out the extra pounds, I think I'd sweat it off in no time. It's strange how energetic I felt afterwards.

Later I had an appointment with an employment specialist to go through my CV and fine tune it to give me a better chance of getting interviewed. I've sent off applications for 12 jobs so far, received 3 outright rejections and not had any invitations to interview as yet. That contrasts strongly with my previous job-hunting experience. Someone has suggested I'm underselling myself.

In the evening I hooked up the trusty satnav and found my way to the Friends' Meeting House at Woking for a talk on the significance of silence in the Buddha Dharma. (Following the link will take you off this page to the Woking Quakers' website, and you can scroll down to an article about the talk). It was very interesting, but the wooden bench I was sitting on wasn't exactly comfortable for a prolonged sit, and as the time wound round towards 9.45 pm I just wanted to head for home. Eventually I decided there was nothing else for it but to stand up and thread my way carefully past the other attendees (the room was packed and I was sitting just about furthest from the exit). Back in the comfort of the car I re-programmed the satnav to take me home ... but there was a road closed and the diversion took me well off track. Now this is the kind of situation which makes me very thankful for the satnav and ultimately it did get me home safely. You noticed the word 'ultimately', yes? The route was very ... how can I put it ... 'interesting', involving extremely narrow country lanes and a dead end which the satnav seemed to think was an acceptable route. Those bollards looked pretty solid to me! As I turned in the road and drove back, the satnav persisted in instructing me to 'perform a U-turn, perform a U-turn'. I don't think there's a button you can press to tell it it's made a mistake. Oh well, once I'd found my way to the nearest main road, it got me back on track so we're still friends.

Cautionary Tales

On Sunday I visited the local church. One of the readings was from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11 v37-52; to put it in context, Jesus had just been talking to a large crowd. A Pharisee (a Jew who was so well versed in the Old Testament he was recognised as a practitioner and teacher of law) invited Jesus to come and eat with him. Jesus accepted the invitation, went in and 'reclined at the table' with the Pharisees' guests. The Pharisee is surprised when Jesus doesn't wash before the meal as was the Jewish custom.

As a Christian I've been accustomed to reading this story from a perspective that says more or less 'Jesus is the perfect shining example of all that is good and can do no wrong'. However, for some reason upon reading it this time I was able to step out of that mindset and see how it would look if I was reading a story about myself as the 'named character'. So I've just been out addressing the crowds and getting my ego stroked by being the centre of attention, and someone important, someone others respect and look up to, compounds that by inviting me to enjoy his hospitality. Wow, am I doing great or what? Accepted into the 'highest' circles! So I go in and I'm familiar with the custom of washing before eating but today I just go to the table and take up my place. Now is that because I'm hungry and can't wait to eat, or because I understand the reason for the rules and have faith that I'm not going to suffer on this occasion through throwing convention to the winds, or because I want to make a point, or some other reason such as being so caught up in what happened outside that I simply forget ... on this point the story is silent. The consequence, however, is that this important person who has just extended me the acceptance of being his equal now finds his notions of equality being challenged. He who has exhibited his adherence to the rules through his outward habits is now faced with someone who seems profoundly 'other'. Where there had been acceptance of the 'we' position, now he is feeling surprised by this glaring difference between us. A simple omission on my part signals the underlying 'me, you' sense of separation as the Pharisee fails to recognise himself in my action. What happens next? Rather than taking some action that will reconcile us, smooth over the awkward moment and switch us back into brotherhood, effectively I emphasise my own sense of the difference, and more: of my sense of being superior to my host and his colleagues. Ungraciously I lambast them about their behaviour. Now here's the point that really caught my attention. In the speech Jesus is quoted as saying:

" Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them.
So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.
Because of this, God in his wisdom said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.'
Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all."

Lately I've been thinking about quantum physics. A while back I watched Dr Brian Greene's 'The Elegant Universe' and read the book. I watched the TV series 'FlashForward' and when it stopped midway through the series for Christmas, I borrowed the novel from the library and read that. (It draws on quantum physics). I've been watching the extended DVD set, 'What the Bleep do we know? ', learning about 'entanglement' and 'consciousness'. I've been reading books that suggest that the energy we send out comes back to us (also a physical 'law': every action has an equal and opposite reaction). When I look at this tirade and put it in the context of the story of Jesus' life as told in the Gospels, it becomes a cautionary tale reminding me to be careful what I say when I'm in a state of perceiving myself to be separate from others.

The Sunday morning service continued with a reading from Paul's epistle to the Galatians chapter 6 v1-18 which includes the warning: "God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." Sadly from the Gospel accounts, it would appear Jesus reaped the consequences of his words, dying on a cross bearing the responsibility for the blood of the prophets.